Posts in "Constitution"

There is a great video floating around the web of a guy named Paul Curtman taking Senator Claire McCaskill's office to school on the powers of congress in the Constitution.

Check it out:

This kind of action needs to happen more and more. It is time that the people stand up to the elected officials and use the Constitution to do so. The freaks in Washington haven't read their own governing document in a long time, and it is about time they opened it up.

Real ID isn't been in danger of implementation yet, and has all but had the last nail put in its coffin. However, the time for breathing easy is not now: It seems the Obama administration has a replacement bill in the works -- a rebranding of sorts. Janet Napolitano, President Obama's Homeland Security chief, is trying to push what she calls "Real ID Lite," or the PASS act(Providing for Additional Security in States' Identification Act of 2009).

James Bovard explains its history for those who may not know what Real ID is, why it's a threat to our liberty, and the dangers of this current idea from Janet Napolitano.

Mr. Bovard writes:

But this bill contains many of the same risks as the REAL ID. And Napolitano is promoting requiring state drivers’ licenses to contain RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips with unique numbers for each individual. Katherine Albrecht, author of the bestseller Spychips, warns that this scheme could make it easy for the government to identify anyone who attends a gun show or an antiwar rally. Albrecht asks: "What happens to all those people when a government operator carrying a reading device makes a circuit of the event? They could download all those unique ID numbers and link them." And it would be a small step from this to putting all the names on watch lists.

Congress continues to get crazier just when you thought that wasn't possible.

Although it hasn't recieved much media attention, Rep Jose Serrano (D-NY) introduced a House Joint Resolution earlier this year to repeal the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, the clause which limits presidents to two terms of service.

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification

While the bill has no cosponsors at at this time, it wouldn't surprise me if it suddenly became popular among Democrats if Obama wins reelection. This could be the start of ever more tyrannical rule, and, if it successfully passes and repeals the 22nd Amendment, would justify the warnings against government we've heard for years.

In response to a proposed tax plan likely to pass the N.C. Legislature in the next few days, Amazon is ending its affiliate program in North Carolina.

Over the past few weeks, Seattle-based Amazon has protested legislation in North Carolina and California that would require e-commerce companies to collect sales taxes if they have marketing affiliates - people who get a sales commission from links on their own Web sites - in those states. Hawaii and Connecticut are also weighing similar laws. Amazon says efforts to force it to collect taxes based on marketing affiliate relationships are "unconstitutional" and would backfire if Amazon were to sever ties with its advertising partners.

Bravo to Amazon for protesting North Carolina's unconstitutional tax proposal. When will lawmakers realize that perverse, unfair, and unlawful tax collection schemes and economic legislation have unintended consequences that hurt more than they help? More here. Amazon's letter is here.

The Washington Post is reporting that the White House, worried about Congress curtailing efforts to close Guantanamo, is trying to drum up support for a reassertion of an executive order that would once again give the president the authority to incarcerate "terrorist suspects" indefinitely.

Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war.

Peter Schiff's video blog today is interesting for several reasons -- not the least of which is, as always, his sage economic advice. Schiff gives his take on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court and the idea of the "living" Constitution. He gives a rigorous and salient defense of constitutional principles.
I have long wondered why so many ignore the fact that the Constitution need not be cleverly "interpreted" when it can simply be amended, but some do ignore that fact, preferring to rely on executive force or judicial activism to get their way. Followed correctl

And aside from the voting seat in Congress thing, there is of course the unconstitutional war thing, the rampant ignoring of our guaranteed rights and liberties thing, the unjust intervention in the economy thing...